Sarah Palin, Stop Whining! You Are Not a Victim!

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

After the Tucson shooting, there has been a public debate about the nature of today's political discourse. As a part of the debate, many commentators have criticized former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) for using a controversial map putting designated Congressional districts, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district, in gun cross hairs.

In addition, Palin has been criticized for using gun related political rhetoric like "Don't retreat, reload." Other Republican politicians have been condemned for advocating "Second Amendment remedies" and for urging people to be "armed and dangerous." In response to this controversy, Palin issued the above video recorded statement.

Sarah Palin's lame remarks miss the point. No mainstream critics have accused Palin of inspiring Jared Loughner to shoot and kill innocent people.

However, there is a rational reason for discussing the Tucson tragedy and over heated political rhetoric together. Palin's map put Rep. Giffords in gun cross hairs. On Saturday, Loughner put Giffords in his cross hairs and shot her in the head at point blank range. During the health care debate, Giffords's offices received threats and was vandalized. Those facts together with rhetoric about "Second Amendment remedies" and being "armed and dangerous" made the connection inevitable. Instead of offering poor excuses for such violent rhetoric, Palin and the nation should reflect on the potential impact of such venomous discourse.

For Palin to equate her ordeal with historic antisemitism (blood libel) is disgraceful. The recent criticism of Palin is not libelous. Such criticism is rooted in undeniable facts.

Sarah Palin, stop whining. You are not a victim. The six murdered people, including a little girl, are victims, not you. Giffords is in the hospital recovering from gun wounds to the head. Giffords and the other injured people are the victims, not you. 

The Tucson Shooting is America's Wake Up Call

The Washington Post reports that:

"The mass shooting Saturday morning that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed a federal judge raised serious concerns that the nation's heated political discourse had taken a dangerous turn.

Police are holding a 22-year-old man in the shooting rampage, which occurred outside a supermarket where Giffords was greeting constituents. The gunman shot Giffords in the head at close range and then continued to fire into the small gathering of people, police said.

Police said they think that Giffords was the target of the attack.

Law enforcement and medical officials in Arizona said that at least 18 people were shot in the melee and that six of them had died, including John M. Roll, the chief U.S. District judge in Arizona, and Gabe Zimmerman, Giffords's local director of community outreach. Also killed was Christina Taylor Green, 9, who was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and had gone to the event with a neighbor. Two other Giffords staffers, district director Ron Barber and community outreach aide Pam Simon, were wounded.

Authorities said they were seeking a second man as a "person of interest" who might have been at the scene with the gunman. He is not a suspect in the shooting, authorities said."

This tragic incident should be a major wake up call for America in two respects.  First, it should force people to realize that we need more effective gun control regulations.  As reported by the Huffington Post in April 2010, "Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a permit." Later in the article, it states that "[n]early all adults can already carry a weapon openly in Arizona."  In light of the horrific shooting in Tucson, such lax guns law should not stand. 

How many more innocent people will be slaughtered before Congress gets the message and enacts true gun control legislation?  In April 1999, two high school students went on a shooting rampage and killed 13 people and seriously injured 20 more students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.  In April 2007, a deranged student went on a shooting spree, killed 33 students and injured 15 students at Virginia Tech.  In August 2010, a disgruntled employee shot 10 co-workers at Hartford Distributors, killing eight of them.  How many more Columbines or Virginia Techs will Congress allow to happen? Since a member of Congress was shot and a federal judge was killed, will Congress finally act? 

Second, this tragedy should force politicians and commentators to realize that their rhetoric may lead to violence.  Although there is no indication that the alleged shooter was affiliated with or inspired by the Tea Party, the Tea Party should cease using violent rhetoric following the Tucson tragedy.  A few examples of recent violent/vitriolic rhetoric or threatening protests include:

Sharon Angle told a conservative radio host: "If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around.  And I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

As reported on Global Grind, "Sarah Palin has just thrown down the gauntlet with a new site called Take Back The 20, which is aimed at knocking off 20 Democrats who voted for Obamacare in GOP-leaning districts. On the map, the districts are marked by snipers, which includes Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district."  Regarding health care reform, Sarah Palin tweeted: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page."

During the mid term elections, Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West's former Chief of Staff Joyce Kaufman said, "I am convinced that the most important thing the founding fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will."

In August 2009, a man carried an assault rifle to a protest against President Obama in Phoenix, Arizona.  In addition, many protesters have attended Tea Party rallies armed.  On more than a few occasions, they carried protest signs reading "We Came Unarmed [This Time]".

Fox News analyst Bill O'Reilly campaign against abortion provider Dr. George Tillman.  See Salon article and Fox video clip for details.  A right wing extremist later murder Dr. Tillman. 

Finally, on a side note, I find it interesting that none of the corporate media outlets have mentioned the word "terrorism" in connection with incident. If the perpetrator was Arab or Muslim, the media would have instantly declared this an act of terrorism.  The media should reevaluate how it covers stories involving political violence. Awake up America!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Two Marches, Two Visions: Are We Ready to Move this Nation Forward?

This past weekend marked the 47th anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The Nation’s Capitol hosted two major demonstrations, Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally and Rev. Al Sharpton’s Reclaim the Dream March.

Glenn Beck held his Restoring Honor rally on the Washington mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the same location where King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. For the most part, there were no political signs, no political speeches, and no guns. However, I noticed a few “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. Making a thinly veiled swipe at the Obama Administration, Sarah Palin voiced opposition to efforts to "fundamentally transform" America. The rally was a strange mix of extreme patriotism and evangelical revivalism. To create the illusion of diversity, there were quite a few token African American speakers and singers. However, the overwhelming majority of the participants were white.

Despite Beck’s efforts to describe the date as a coincidence, according to Salt Lake City Tribune writer Leonard Pitts’s article titled Memo to Glenn Beck, Beck said, on this radio program three months ago,

“This is a moment that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. ... We are on the right side of history. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!”

Consequently, Beck’s rally has generated a lot of controversy. The date and location are peculiar because Beck and his Tea Party comrades are opposed to most of aims and objectives of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King sought to unite all people regardless of race. Beck, Palin and other Tea Party public figures divide the people with their vitriolic rhetoric and incessant race baiting. For instance, Beck described President Obama as someone who has “a deep seated hatred for white people.” He also described America during this Obama era as “Planet of the Apes”. Sarah Palin has been at the forefront of the racist, Islamophobic opposition to the building of a Muslim cultural center two blocks away from ground zero. After Dr. Laura Schlissinger’s racist “N” word rant, Sarah Palin advised Schlissinger via Twitter “don’t retreat…reload!”

Dr. King urged the federal government to actively address the problems of racism and poverty. Beck and friends advocate for a limited government and support tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. During his interview on Fox News Sunday, Glenn Beck acknowledged that he opposes the Civil Rights Movement’s economic agenda. Dr. King was a man of peace who opposed American imperialism and militarism. Beck and friends romanticize militarism and drape it in the garb of exaggerated patriotism. Dr. King advocated progressive liberation theology. Beck condemns such theology.

If King, Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph and the other prominent 1963 March on Washington organizers were alive today, Beck and Palin would call them Marxists and socialists. As others have said, such civil rights heroes would be on Beck’s conspiracy chalk board.

Moreover, right wing conservatives like Glenn Beck have revised history to suit their political purposes. They have reduced Dr. King and the Movement down to a single phrase, “judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The Right has attempted to neuter and, in the words of Cornel West, Santa Clausify Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Under the guise of creating a color blind society, some conservatives have used that "content of character" phrase to eviserate everything that King stood for. In their upside down bizarre world, white men are the victims and African Americans are the racists. Affirmative action and other measures designed to promote racial diversity are viewed as reverse discrimination.

Unfortunately, the Restoring Honor rally will legitimize Glenn Beck and the far right Tea Party movement. The crowd size speaks volumes. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of people participated in the Restoring Honor rally. Like rapper Jay Z says, “man lie, women lie, numbers don’t.”



Now, to end on a more positive note, I also watched Rev. Al Sharpton’s “Reclaim the Dream” rally. The central theme was: “We have made progress but we have not arrived yet.” Other speakers included National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Adrian Fenty, Warren Ballantine , Black Farmers Association leader John Boyd, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others.

The “Reclaim the Dream” speakers addressed a wide array of pertinent issues including poverty, inner city violence, mass incarceration, unemployment, educational and D.C. statehood. During the rally, John Boyd pointed out how approximately 80,000 black farmers filed race discrimination complaints against the United States Department of Agriculture and no one was fired. However, Shirley Sherrod was fired on the spot based on half-truths and distortions. Mr. Ballantine summed up my view the rally when said, “A dream without a plan is nothing more than a wish.” As Sharpton stated during his speech, the Reclaim the Dream rally cannot just be a one day event.

Judging by the size of Beck's crowd, they are apparently ready and organized to “take the country back.” Commemorations are great, but the real question is “are we ready and sufficiently organized to move this country forward”?

Islamophobia: Mainstream Hate

The proposed construction of a Muslim community center two long blocks away from ground zero has exposed and unleashed a rabid new wave of anti-Muslim hatred. Without doubt, the opposition to the mosque is rooted in prejudice and hate. Essentially, the opposition views all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists. That is primary reason why they oppose building a mosque near ground zero.

The opposition to building mosques is not confined to the area near ground zero. For instance, as noted in the New York Times article by Laurie Goodstein titled Across the Nation, Mosque Projects Meet Opposition,

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

In addition to protests against the building of mosques, there are other examples of anti-Muslim hatred. For example, one church plans to hold a Quran burning ceremony on September 11, 2010. Moreover, as pointed out on the Rachel Maddow Show, the hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) seeks to outlaw Islam in America.

This hatred is also reflected in polls. According to TIME magazine’s poll,

61% of respondents oppose the construction of the Park51/Cordoba House project, compared with 26% who support it. More than 70% concur with the premise that proceeding with the plan would be an insult to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President....

The discussion centering around President Obama’s faith is another example of anti-Muslim hatred. Many view being a Muslim as a blot on one's character. For instance, President Obama has been forced to repeatedly explain that he is a Christian and not a Muslim. Nonetheless, many Americans remain unconvinced. Shortly after the President voiced support for building a mosque near ground zero, the Pew Research Center released the results of a national survey. According to the survey,

[N]early one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. The view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among his political opponents than among his backers. Roughly a third of conservative Republicans (34%) say Obama is a Muslim, as do 30% of those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance. But even among many of his supporters and allies, less than half now say Obama is a Christian. Among Democrats, for instance, 46% say Obama is a Christian, down from 55%in March 2009.

Frankly, as Muslim, I find this anti-Muslim trend to be frightening because it is not just coming from the lunatic fringe. Mainstream politician politicians such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Republican Governor Sarah Palin and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio joined the hateful chorus. Newt Gingrich compared Muslims to Nazis. Some hypocritical politicians like Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio are actually pimping the 9/11 tragedy to score political points. Under pressure from the anti-Muslim right, feeble Democrats such as U.S. Senator Harry Reid and former Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean have capitulated and now oppose the building of the Muslim community center.

It is particularly disturbing to see victims of discrimination embrace this new form of antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a long and distinguished history of fighting discrimination. Yet, ADL issued a press statement opposing construction of the Muslim community center. I was shocked to learn that even some prominent black bloggers have jumped on the hate Muslims bandwagon.

It is time to stop the hate.

Hoodwinked and Bamboozled

Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the racist elements of the Tea Party Movement. Despite the fact that the NAACP passed many other significant resolutions, the media became fixated on the Tea Party issue.

For the pass couple of years, prominent African American bloggers such as Field Negro and Jack and Jill Politics exposed the extremist and racist fringes of the Tea Party movement. For years, other progressive media outlets such as The Huffington Post and Democracy Now have discussed that issue in depth. This issue is nothing new.

The racist elements in the Tea Party movement are apparent. Many of their demonstrations include racist and inflammatory signs. Some signs depict President Obama as a monkey, a stereotypical African Witch doctor and a Muslim terrorist. Other signs read "Obamanomics, Monkey See, Monkey Spend", "Obama's Plan, White Slavery", "The American Taxpayers Are the Jews for Obama's Ovens", "Congress = Slave Owner, Taxpayer = Niggar", "Cap Congress and Trade Obama Back to Kenya", "Impeach Muslim Marxist" and "The Zoo has an African, The White House has a Lyin' African". Recently, Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams wrote a mock letter from the NAACP to President Lincoln stating:

"We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"

Consequently, the National Tea Party Federation expelled Mr. Williams. On March 20, 2010, Tea Party protesters called Congressman John Lewis a "nigger". These action are clearly racist. As an NAACP staff member, I am proud that the NAACP strongly condemned such racism.

To counter the NAACP's accusations, the Tea Party movement has deployed several token African American spokespersons such as David Webb, Deneen Borelli and others. By utilizing such persons, the Tea Party is attempting to say, "We are not racist. We have black leaders." Before this controversy, those people were practically invisible. Where is Sarah Palin? Where is Dick Armey? Why hasn't the media asked them to address the controversy?

To divert attention from the real issue, the conservatives have argued that the NAACP is hypocritical for failing to renounce the New Black Panther Party (NBPP). That argument is flawed for several reasons. NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous has publicly condemned the NBPP for its racism. As Mr. Jealous stated, the NBPP is not a partner organization, member organization or unit of the NAACP. The NBPP does not participate in the NAACP's demonstrations. Conversely, as previously stated, racists actually participate in Tea Party demonstrations and hold positions of influence.

In addition, the Tea Party supporters demanded that the NAACP renounce former USDA official Shirley Sherrod for racial statements made during an NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner. During her speech, Ms. Sherrod described an incident that occurred over 20 years ago. Unfortunately, without conducting a thorough investigation, the Association issued a stern condemnation. Essentially, the NAACP was hoodwinked and bamboozled by Tea Party proponents into issuing the statement. Later, to clarify the situation, the Association retracted the statement and posted the full video of Ms. Sherrod's speech.

We must not allow our adversaries to confuse and distract us. Instead of attempting to placate right wing conservatives, we must remain focused. The Tea Party movement is an influential movement. The Tea Party is shaping the electoral landscape. We must continue to demand that the Tea Party take down the racist signs. We must demand that they expel the racists from their ranks.